Category: 2011

A Promising Season of MotoGP

Today’s MotoGP race at Jerez was the best I’d seen ages. After a year of so-so races which promised much but often failed to deliver, including the wet ones, this race was a return to old form – and dare I say even more dramatic than some Rossi-inspired classics we’ve seen in the past.

The race had everything. A damp slippery track; a legend starting in the middle of the field who immediately set about picking off 3 or 4 rivals per lap; a pair of World Champions riding off into the sunset in the early running, before being pulled in by the rookie on the privateer bike.. who subsequently fell off; the legend coming together with one of the past champs and only one surviving to continue, seemingly at the whim of the local marshals; nobody being able to hold on to 2nd or 3rd without finding some form of drama.

Amazing. You should watch this race. Make it a priority. Even if you aren’t usually a MotoGP fan: Watch This Race.

It is easy to claim the season will be a great one after a race like this when in fact it is an oddity, a one-off, but this time I think it is true. Obviously they won’t all be as dramatic as this one. They won’t be as boring as the races last year, either. We saw the potential in Qatar. Honda are the team to beat but they are beatable, Rossi and Ducati are coming together nicely, the Yamahas have a decent enough pace, and Simoncelli looks likely to mix it with the factory boys often.

We could see plenty of really good battles this season. Could MotoGP regain a lost crown and once more claim to have the best wheel-to-wheel action in the world? I think it can and will.

GrandAm: 2011 Rolex 24 at Daytona

I watched a sizeable chunk of the Daytona 24 Hours live a couple of weeks ago. It was good fun, especially as the Blogathon was happening at the same time and I was also juggling Twitter and some live commenting.

Even though GrandAm is fairly alien to me I really enjoyed this race. I’ve been watching a few things over winter but recordings aren’t the same, and the Dakar Rally was great but it isn’t circuit racing. It really felt like a breath of fresh air. This race felt like the first hit of warmth and Vitamin D you get from the sun in early spring after a particularly long, dull, dreary, wet winter. You know in Daybreakers when the sun hits the guy’s face? A reawakening.

This was the first time I’d paid so much attention to the race, I’d tried to follow in past years but was thwarted by very low-quality streams (cars as blurs on the screen and a lot of buffering) which were eventually shut down anyway. This year I really want to make use of the Eurosport Player, watch the race legitimately – but no, Eurosport couldn’t even cover the start of the race and then missed almost all of Sunday. Give us a reason to watch, guys. The stream I found this year was quite good (relatively), and SPEED’s coverage was largely excellent. The commentary line-up was very good indeed.

Everybody expected the two Ganassi cars to dominate and despite falling a long way back due to various problems, they did just that, they dominated the others – and made use of GrandAm’s Safety Car rules in which a lap can be regained if played right – to eventually claim a 1-2 finish by the end of the event. It was a fantastic effort especially by Joey Hand. Juan Pablo Montoya’s efforts received mixed reactions, his speed and determination was lauded but his excuberent wheel-banging was rightly not.

The real reason my attention was held for so long was the performance of two crews new to the event. I’ve been a fan of the Flying Lizard team in ALMS/LM24 GT racing for many years so I was amazed to see them enter the top class of an event like this. Their professionalism wasn’t doubted but nobody seriously thought they’d get results in their first attempt outside of GTs, in very unfamiliar equipment against some worthy experienced opposition. Yet they secured the pole and went on to extend a definite lead in the early running. Trouble struck, yet once the car rejoined 19 laps down it was again the fastest in the field and often by some margin (including those dominant Ganassis). Very impressive stuff.

The other impressive team was United Autosports. They did have the help of GrandAm stalwarts Michael Shank Racing, but they still had to perform. It was fantastic to see Martin Brundle and Mark Blundell prove any doubters wrong and demonstrate their speed. F1 and CART experience apart they have both always been excellent endurance racers and so it was proven once more. I like United. I like their attitude and their approach and they have a big future.

GrandAm cars are faster than I gave them credit for, particularly the DPs, whether that’s because they were on the high banks of Daytona I don’t know. I can’t say I was into the GT race though, usually I am in multi-class races, they might want to look into that for the future.

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This post is part of a new series of race reviews. I’ve tried doing this before in a number of formats, all of which were quite long and ended up explaining what happened rather than giving my thoughts on the race. Unlike many bloggers I am not a reporter or a journalist and I never want to be. From now on I will be writing down my opinions in blog posts of ~500 words or less. Or maybe a little more, like this one.

2011 Motorsport Calendar

For the second year running, I have created motorsport calendars for a variety of race series for use with Google Calendar and iCal. They ought to work with other things too such as Outlook but your mileage may vary – give it a go and see what happens!

I created the dedicated Calendar page a few weeks ago but never got around to plugging it in the main blog. This was by design, I was waiting for official start times from racing bodies. There still aren’t many around, but with the Formula 1 times released in the last few days and others gradually emerging, and with the racing season now truly upon us, it is time to plug it properly!

What Are They?

If you want an online calendar you can use to easily look up which races are happening on a given weekend, here is your answer. You can pick and choose which series you want to add, so you can choose F1, IndyCar, MotoGP and ILMC if you like, while ignoring NASCAR and BTCC.

Each series is listed independently, and the different ‘Le Mans’ series are independent of one another as well, so you can colour-code them if you choose (this does mean some ILMC duplication).

This is what they look like when used with Google Calendar:

IWTMR Motorsport Calendar for March 2011 shown in Google Calendar. Disclaimer: Only a handful events have published start times as of 6-Feb, those without are shown as 'all-day events' until start times are released.

How Do I Use Them?

To choose your series simply go to the list on this page and add them at will. Unfortunately WordPress and Google don’t seem to be friends so I can’t embed them.

Notes

– Events with start times are listed in colour text. Events with no start times (or those spanning more than a day like Le Mans) are listed in colour blocks. I hope to add start times as they become available, this might not be until a week before the event.

– Practice sessions are NOT included. If you viewed more than a handful of championships the races and qualifying sessions got lost among hundreds of practice sessions, so I deleted them. Let’s focus on the interesting and important things.

– For more notes please read here.

I really hope you like these and find them useful throughout 2011!

Blogathon 2011 is This Weekend!

I can’t believe it has come around so soon, this weekend from 8pm GMT it is the 3rd Annual Blogathon at Grab Bag Sports!

Previously known as Furious Wedge, GBS will again be hosting the 24.5-hour blogging marathon. The original was set up ostensibly to follow the Daytona 24 Hours but also to check in with a bunch of other sports happening the same weekend, including the Australian Open, basketball, even cricket.. anything vaguely sports-related happening over the weekend. The focus is generally Daytona, tennis and American sports but really anything goes, if a way can be found to watch it or talk about it, it’ll be watched and talked about. Don’t forget to follow that link and leave your guess for when Scott Pruett says hello to his family – prizes are at stake.

This year’s event is bigger and better than ever, featuring as it does these special guests:

– IZOD IndyCar Series driver Alex Tagliani (#77 FAZZT Racing), one of the most ‘social media’-aware drivers from possibly the most SM-aware paddock in the world, and also a great guy.
– ESPN senior writer Ryan McGee who covers motorsport and college football, which seems an odd combination but there you go.
– NZR Consulting’s Tony Cotman, he’s the man charged with bringing in the 2012 IndyCar rules, did the same for Champ Car, and is also the chief steward for the Firestone Indy Lights series.

There will be Q&A chat sessions with each, check the site for times as well as a schedule of sports occurring this weekend, a slightly different schedule is here for UK/European-types and those elsewhere who find a way to watch.

A regular feature has become the guest bloggers posting throughout, this year includes (but is not limited to):
– Steph and Paul from More Front Wing;
– Tony from Pop Off Valve;
– James from 16th & Georgetown;
– Shane from Australia (regularly contributing to Curt Cavin’s Q&A and radio show);
– and… me. While the above are IndyCar fanatics I can struggle to keep up with it so I guess I’m there to provide a different dimension.. or something? Er. Thanks for the invite!

We’ll be posting regularly alongside our esteemed hosts: Allen Wedge, Mike Furious, and Andy ‘The Speedgeek’.

There will be a blogger Q&A too, come along and ask questions. Primarily ask them to Tags and Cotman, but if you get there at the wrong time ask us blogpeople instead.

Let’s not forget the Mario Kart tournament featuring a live chat room! It may be a bit late for me, it didn’t stop me staying up until 5am last year but I may not go that far this time.

I really do hope you join us, even if you have no idea about Daytona, NFL, the Aussie Open, or whatever else might crop up. It’ll be fun!

Head to http://www.grabbagsports.com/ from 8pm GMT Saturday until 9pm Sunday for much fun and merriment.